Kenneth Hagin Ministries

About Kindle the Flame

The first Kindle the Flame® Women’s Conference was held September 27–29, 2001, but the dream for a women’s conference was birthed in Rev. Lynette Hagin more than 25 years earlier. Read the story in her own words of how Kindle the Flame got its start.

In 1974, I had prayed desperately and earnestly, “God, what would You have for my life? What would you have me to do?” It was a point in my life when I desperately needed to know what God had planned for me.

Until that time, I had always been involved in some aspect of ministry. I was raised in a pastor’s home and had always been involved in doing many things for the Lord. But in 1974, at the time when I began to seek God for His plan for me, my place in ministry had seemed to disappear. My children were young. RHEMA Bible Training Center had just started, and my husband was quite busy taking care of the school.

This season of my life was a real quiet time of ministry for me. It seemed that my only involvement in ministry was through prayer. Praying was all I could do at that time. So I began praying, “Lord, what do You have planned for me?”

As I prayed day after day after day, the Lord began to drop some things in my heart. And when I was 29 years old, one of the things He revealed to me was that I would someday host a conference for women. He did not tell me when. He told me that He would let me know when the time was right, saying, “I’ll let you know when the time comes that these things I have told you will be fulfilled, and you will walk out My plan one step at a time.”

More than 25 years later, in January 2001, as I was praying, the Lord let me know, “Now! Now is the time!” The first annual Kindle the Flame Women’s Conference, held September 27–29, 2001, fulfilled one of the dreams the Lord put in my heart so long ago—the dream to ignite the spark of divine purpose within each woman so she could return to her family and job with fresh enthusiasm.

Each September, women from across the nation and the world gather on the RHEMA campus for the event that has become one of my greatest joys. Hosting a national women’s conference wasn’t always a joy. I can remember when God’s call to hold meetings for women was one of my greatest apprehensions!

When the Lord first spoke to me during that time of prayer and let me know He wanted me to hold women’s meetings, I didn’t want to do it. I had seen too many women’s groups get off-base doctrinally and become “hyper-spiritual,” neglecting their homes and families.

For many years, I wrestled with the Lord’s instructions. But I didn’t just sit on my hands in the meantime. Since that time in 1974, the Lord kept me busy with many other things in the ministry, such as general manager for all the Kenneth Hagin Ministries offices, director of RHEMA Bible Training Center, and carrying out all the normal duties of the pastor’s wife of a church of over 8,000 members! But every time I began to pray out the steps of my life and ministry, I always ended up praying about ministering to women!

I agonized about it, saying, “Lord, please, not me. I don’t want to do that. I’m happy doing what I’m doing right now in the ministry. I really don’t need anything else to do!” Of course, I finally yielded and said, “Okay, I’ll do it. But You will have to show me the plan. You will have to show me what I’m to do.” And He said, “I’ll do that.”

Over the years, I protected the dream God had given me, hiding His instructions in my heart. In my mind, I figured the plan would take shape when I turned 40. Forty came and went, and the Lord didn’t say, “Go ye!” Then 50 came and went, and there was still no “Go ye.” I thought, God, this is wonderful! Maybe You were only testing my willingness to obey You.

But in the year 2001, the Lord said, “Now is the time!” And I said, “Okay, then You have to give me the plan.” You see, although God had told me that one of my callings would be ministering to women, He had not given me the specific plan to fulfill that call.

It was then that He said He would gather an army of women around me. The United States Army has always been close to my heart because my husband served in that branch of the military, and he still loves the Army. I thought, Yes, Lord, I know how to lead an army of women. If that’s what You want me to do, I can do it!

God showed me that the army of women would need to know how to balance being a godly woman, wife, and mother and that they would need to know how to balance their divine calling with all that these roles entailed. These women would be called—even as Queen Esther was called—for such a time as this (Esther 4:14).

All those years, I kept in my heart the plan that God had given me. Even when it seemed in the natural that things weren’t happening, I held on to His promises. During the years when I was focused on raising my children and supporting my husband’s ministry (those years when I wasn’t active in ministry and was nowhere close to holding annual women’s conferences), I held on to God’s plan for my life. I prayed about it, protected the dreams, and waited for just the right time—God’s time!

As you can imagine, the first night of the first Kindle the Flame Women’s Conference in 2001 was a special night for me. I was able to witness the Lord bringing to pass something He had placed in my heart 25 years earlier.

Now, through the Kindle the Flame Women’s Conferences, my goal is to help other women fulfill the plan that God has given them. But my heart goes out to anyone who has a dream that God gave him . . . but feels he is miles away from seeing that dream come true.

Perhaps you have held something in your heart for many years, and you have wondered, God, when will Your plan for my life come to pass? The Lord is saying that He has kept you for such a time as this! Each one of us may have already accomplished something for God, but God has a special purpose for us at this time and in this hour!

Each and every one of us is called. And if you feel unqualified, I want to encourage you. God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called! And if you will totally rely on the Lord your God, you will accomplish what He has called you to do.

For good reason, the Scripture passage we chose for the Kindle the Flame conference is Psalm 18:28 and 29 from the New International Version. It says, “You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.”

It doesn’t matter how tall the wall is that blocks the path God has called you to walk. With God, you are able to overcome it!